Documenting Life in the Desert By Kris Heister The Servicewide Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program was initiated by the National Park Service (NPS) in 1992 but moved along slowly until 1998. In recognition of the need for good scientific information on resources in the NPS, Congress passed the National Parks Omnibus Management Act in 1998, and mandated "a program of inventory and monitoring of National Park System resources to establish baseline information and to provide information on the long-term trends in the condition" of these resources. Current funding is directed at conducting inventories of vascular plants and vertebrates and vital signs monitoring. The I&M program organized park units into Inventory and Monitoring Networks based on similarity of natural resource attributes. The Mojave Network consists of six NPS units in the Mojave and Great Basin biomes: Death Valley NP, Great Basin NP, Joshua Tree NP, Lake Mead NRA, Manzanar NHS, and Mojave NP. Parks in the Mojave Network represent a land base in excess of 7.3 million acres (3.0 million ha), range in elevation from -282 to 13,063 feet (-86 to 3982 m) above sea level, and include natural communities ranging from salt pans to rich riparian zones and alpine habitat. The Mojave Network was allocated a total of $780,669 to conduct vascular plant and vertebrate inventories. In fiscal years 2000 and 2001, the network received some of this funding to conduct data mining activities. Data mining is an effort to collect and summarize all existing information related to vascular plants and vertebrates in network parks. Generally, parks hired seasonal employees to conduct library searches for existing scientific literature, search through park files and databases, search known and potential museum collections, and enter this information into standardized databases developed by the National I&M program. Through this effort we were able to determine that the majority (70%) of vascular plant and vertebrate inventories in the Mojave Network are at least 50% complete. Sixty-six percent of inventories at Great Basin were at least 50% complete (birds: 52%, mammals: 59%, plants: 85%, and reptiles: 58%). Only 46% of fish species potentially occurring at Great Basin have been documented and no amphibian species have been documented in the park. In October 2001, the Mojave I&M Network Biological Inventory Study Plan for vascular plants and vertebrates was approved. Beginning in early 2002, researchers will be arriving at Great Basin to begin a two-year field effort to inventory mammals and amphibians in the park. Great Basin will attempt to design and carry out a reptile inventory using existing park staff and funds. The network has partnered with the Harry Reid Center at UNLV and the Desert Managers Group to manage data resulting from our field efforts. HOW CAN YOU HELP? Unfortunately, the money received through the National I&M program is only enough to start the inventory process. You can help us to document species occurring in the park by keeping your eyes open for those critters that don't quite make it across the road, fence or whatever. If you see an animal that has been killed on the road in the park and is in good shape please contact Kris Heister at 234-7331 extension 227. This may be a species that we haven't documented yet and will help us to reach our goal of documenting at least 90% of all the amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles occurring in the park! Midden Table of Contents